Japan

For quite a while it was clear that I was going to be traveling internationally at the end of October, but I wasn't quite sure where I'd end up going.  There was a meeting in Bariloche, Argentina at the base of the Andes in Patagonia that I was really hoping to go to, but in the end I was more needed at a meeting in Tsukuba, Japan.  I'd been to Japan before, back in 2006 shortly after Owen was born.  On that trip I had a day in Tokyo, and I didn't remember too much of interest in Tsukuba, so I wasn't anticipating anything too exciting from a travel perspective, and I was a bit bummed about missing out on Argentina.  It turned out though that I had Friday afternoon open, and a couple of us took a bus to Mt. Tsukuba for a really interesting hike.  We took a gondola up to the top of the mountain, hiked up to the summit temple, then hiked along the ridge line over to another summit temple, and hiked down to an amazing temple complex at the base of the second mountain.  The views from the summits were beautiful, the hike down through the different types of trees at various elevations was gorgeous, and the temple at the base was the perfect end to a Japanese mountain hike.  It all made me feel a little bit better about missing out on Patagonia.


(click here for all the pictures)